Rev. Joseph Boyd
We are beginning to see that the divide between interior and exterior is not so clear. The dividing line between who we hold ourselves to be and the truths we use to guide our lives that are self-evident seem to be connected to the self-evident truths that we see everywhere when we open our eyes. It is truly mind boggling to open our eyes and see the world that is also a reflection of our interior life: our worries, our concerns, our hopes and dreams.

I have never felt like a global citizen as much as I have in the last few weeks. Even the word America doesn’t seem to be a big enough concept to hold all that is inside. Whether we witness the protested election in Belarus or the grieving citizens of Beirut or those in our own community who are trying their best to stay safe and not take unnecessary risk: it all touches the heart if we allow it. Part of the beauty and pain of this time is that it cannot be fixed on our timetable, and we are being forced to endure and find ways of cultivating consistent, loving resilience over the long haul. And when I say the long haul, I don’t mean until the end of this pandemic: I mean the rest of our lives, the rest of the life of this country however long it will last and the beauty of this world that is beyond our ability to label with neat borders. It is beyond our ability to conceptualize and hold within us in neatly constructed compartments.

I remember when I was a child, and I would have a dinner plate, and I would fit as much as I could onto my plate. While some were able to leave a small space between all the different dishes, mine would always merge together, and the border where cranberry sauce met potatoes with gravy was always a new discovery – a taste that I’ve never had before. Sometimes the taste would repel, and sometimes it would delight, but it was always a surprise, and it felt enlivening to taste that unintended meeting place.

Now we have all these unintended meeting places, a meeting place that has happened before but never on this scale. White Americans meeting black Americans. Americans meeting Europeans, those in Gaza, Beirut, Belarus.

We are seeing the unintended meeting place of families who are asked to spend more time together, business meeting the limits of human vulnerability. We see the meeting place of flailing leadership meeting the real demands of citizens to prosper and live. We are seeing the meeting place of human health and animal health, the lives of those in the city meeting those in rural areas. We are seeing where our values meet the demands and needs of the world, and we are seeing maybe without fully realizing how much the demands and needs of this time are shifting our priorities. We are seeing that our most inmost secrets and yearnings are tied to a life that is outside us, but can be touched, and in that touch a new world emerges for better or worse. We are experiencing the profound intimacy of breath, and the way that breath can be used to animate and sustain life or make more prevalent sickness and stasis. We are seeing in very tangible ways the meeting place of personal responsibility and a greater responsibility.

One of the maxims of prayer is that it may not change what or who you are praying for but it will change you. I see now this is a limited and incomplete maxim. I see now beyond a shadow of a doubt that when we change ourselves, the world is also changed. The world and our interior life are not two separate things with a neat space in the middle – they are merged, and literally part of a breathing, living, cycle. Our breath changes the world, and what the world is, becomes part of our insides, the very marrow of who we are and how we function. We are not just interconnected, to use the term of Thich Nhat Hanh, we inter-are. The interior private life we have is our public’s life, and the public’s life is in turn who we are.

 So other than a theoretical perspective, how can this awareness be helpful for us? It means when we take good care of ourselves, we are taking good care of the world. It also means when we take care of the world, we are taking good care of ourselves.

And what do I mean by good care? I don’t mean working strenuously until you’re overwhelmed, exhausted, and resentful. I don’t mean fixing ourselves or fixing the world, in a mechanistic way. What I mean by taking good care is respecting that we are alive, and that the world out there is also alive. It is a breathing, living organism, not a thing or a machine or a static one note system. It is alive, and living things need nurture and attention to thrive.

The interior work is the work of attention and nurture, noticing what is happening, so we can nurture growth and possibility. How do we do this? How do we nurture growth and possibility? The wonderful thing is that there isn’t one prescription, because we are dealing with a situation that is alive, not static. Which is why attention is so important. We don’t know and we’re not meant to know what to do in this moment, but we can learn to pay attention, and sustain that attention long enough that an appropriate action arises. If instead of trying to control and manage this moment as if it was a static, predictable machine, we can accept that we are dealing with a situation that is alive, and that we are alive in that situation now. In doing this we may be able to feel more curious about what possibilities may be presenting to us. We may discover how alive we actually are, and in seeing how alive we are, come to appreciate how alive the world is.

It seems to me that the interior work is to recognize this basic truth, and constantly remind ourselves of this: We are alive, not stuck or static or mechanistic, even though we sometimes act this way. We are alive – it sounds so obvious we may be tempted to lose curiosity and take this for granted. We may think we know what it means to be alive, to be a living, breathing organism, and once we are certain about this, we are no longer alive in the same way. Our life becomes a possession, something we own, rather something we are and experience with awe. Our life becomes an object or a container, a holding place, a pause, a bookmark until we pay attention to see where the story is leading us moment by moment.

Everything in this time feels profoundly personal, because it is. It’s incredibly personal, and it also doesn’t belong to us. Being alive is respecting what we are personally going through: our challenges and our hopes. Being alive is also seeing where the borders of our life merge unexpectedly, not always in pleasant ways, with a world that is mysterious because it is alive and ultimately can’t be codified or pinned down. It can’t be tamed, even when we trick ourselves into thinking so. It can be offered attention, and in that attention is not so much a taming, but an understanding, a kinship, an affection. And in that space of understanding, kinship, appreciation, new possibilities for action emerge.

Now, more than ever, our collective imagination has opened more than it ever has. What we thought to be impossible has already happened, and we understand now clearly that the world is not a static, oppressive reality that forces us into lives that we have complicated feelings about, but that our living in small, everyday ways is actually shaping the world we grew to take for granted.

The world we thought we were living in was not as alive as it is now. And of course, this is scary and disconcerting, because this means it will never stay put long enough for us to completely know it. We are being asked to live by trust, not just by knowledge. Our knowledge is far too limited to be the ultimate guide. Even scientists, great scientists, are admitting something very important that deserves our respect: we have no idea fully what is going on. So, knowledge though an important guide cannot be our ultimate guide. Something else must be present.

The wonderful thing about imagination is there are no limits other than the limits we place on it. The imagination is actually truer to life because it mirrors life: it continually expands without end, like the universe. It is wily, unpredictable, surprising, breathtaking, funny, inspiring – just like the world. Instead of trying to manage life to fit our ideas, we can allow our ideas to expand to more closely align with life, life that is alive and expansive, and without end.

Eternity actually makes the most sense, though we will never be able grasp it. It would make sense that this living breathing organism we call life – our life and the life of our world are continually merging with each other and expanding without end. This makes much more sense that the taming of life into categories we create, that artificially limit aliveness for the sake of control. It would make sense that we are born for a capacity to not just notice what is happening but imagine what could be. In many ways the imagination may be more real than what we’re seeing, because once we see something, it has already passed.

So how is all this helpful to us? It means we were built for this – biologically and spiritually. We were built to cultivate attention, nurture, and imagination. It is natural that we would merge with the world in profound and heartbreaking and soul edifying ways. It means it makes sense that we would feel overwhelmed, and that our imagination and sense of aliveness would need to stretch to make room for the life we are now living. It is a comfort that this is all possible, and that transformation is the way for us.

It has always been the way. Really, there is no other way. Even when it feels like we or others are just staying the same, this is never true. It’s actually impossible. Nothing stays the same, including us.

The possibility of transformation can help sustain us in times of trouble and doubt. The transformation is realizing that our interior life is alive, never trapped or static, and this interior aliveness is completely dependent and completely supported 100% by the world. As we face this new period of reconstruction, let us be alive in it. Let us not be spectators, offering commentary from the sidelines of our life. Make us participants. Make us participants in our own life, make us active participants with our own interior feeling of being alive, and help us to nurture and respect this aliveness that is always bigger than any story we can construct. Help us to trust the life we have been given, and the person we’ve become, and help us muster the courage to never quit becoming. Help us to embrace movement and doubt as opportunities to remain curious and pay attention. Help us not to lose our vigilance and keep watch for what is arising for us in this moment, and keep our imaginations open to what may come.

We are in the rare and enviable position to be alive during this time, knowing what we know. We are in the enviable position of going beyond a single leader who will alter our destiny and begin to imagine an entire people acting as participants in the aliveness that is their literal birthright. We are in the enviable position to see our limitations and have the ability to use these edges as the beginning of a new narrative, a new chapter in each one of our lives. We are beginning to see a new destiny emerge, a living, breathing organism that is creating and recreating us in every moment. Let us pay attention to what we are recreated into in this moment. Let us keep watch to see that we are still indeed alive, so that we might nurture the aliveness of our sisters and brothers as we all seek to reconstruct the people, places, laws, and lives that have fallen, and are awaiting the reminder that – Yes, we are still alive, inside and out.